Shifting Winds
by Britty Leigh
Summary: Temari's POV; Something's wrong with the new Kazekage, and the sand trio is left in the dark and exiled. What's going on? Light Shikamaru x Temari.
1. The Command

Shifting Winds

Hello all, I am writing a Naruto fic. I have written many a story before, but I have never submitted fanfiction for others' perusal. I hope you enjoy it.

This is from Temari's point of view and takes place right after the sand trio heads home (just recently in the manga). If you don't follow the manga, there might be a few spoilers in here, though the anime is quickly catching up to it. **So again, there might be spoilers if you don't follow the manga. **There will be mild Shikamaru x Temari in here: just some flirting and stuff.

Naruto and all its characters are © Masashi Kishimoto. I don't own them.

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Chapter One: The Command

I'd consider myself a confident person. At least, most of the time. I have to be. Show the slightest bit of uncertainty in this business and you're dead. There is one thing that makes my confidence falter, however. My youngest brother. He's…special. I never got to, being his older sister, pick on him. I still had Kankuro to pick on, but Gaara made me nervous. This is because he could have easily killed me, whether I was being nice to him or not. Not that I blame or hate him for it. No one understands what he went through. When he would start to lose control even just a little bit, I lost it completely. I wish I could have stayed confident for him. I think he needed that. But I got scared. I knew what he was capable of, and I knew that I couldn't stop him. I wish I could have been his older sister.

It's different now. Gaara's different. I'm not nearly as nervous around him as I used to be. The tension between the three of us has all but evaporated. I only know part of what happened between him and the Konoha kid, because unfortunately, that was not one of my shining moments. My confidence? Out the window. I abandoned Gaara in fear for my own life. But whatever happened there made Gaara change. I think we've all changed.

Father is gone. We weren't really…close with Father, so that's why his passing doesn't really faze me. I think the only thing we need to adjust to is the fact that we're no longer the Kazekage's children. I had a feeling things were going to shift a little, and I was right.

"What's this?" I asked one of the new Kazekage's assistants as he handed me a scroll. We had just gotten back from a little rescue mission requested by the Hokage, and I was looking forward to a little downtime. Not that the flute chick was any problem for me, it's just been a stressful couple of months. Gaara had already gone home. I checked the symbols printed on the outside of the scroll. That's odd. "It doesn't look like a mission…"

"It's not." He replied bluntly. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. I shot Kankuro a look and he shrugged. I looked down at the scroll and then back up at the man standing in front of me. He wasn't in office when Father was Kazekage. I'm not sure whether I like him or not. He had a curious scar above his lip and a rather random tattoo under one of his eyes. I looked back down at the scroll in my hand. What the heck was it? I unfurled it to read it, but before I could start, mr. new guy coughed and motioned towards the door. I guess I wasn't supposed to read this here. I rolled up the scroll and nodded to Kankuro. As we turned to leave, the assistant called after us, "It's best if you leave the youngest out of this."

We didn't stop to question him. But why did we have to keep this a secret from Gaara? Man, I hated keeping anything from him lest he find out and kill me. The minute we were out in the hallway I whipped open the scroll.

"What the hell is going on here?" Kankuro growled as he leaned over my shoulder to read with me. I intended to find out. I quickly skimmed over the writing, and then again to make sure I hadn't just caught some kind of illiteracy disease, which made me unable to correctly read what was in front of me.

"…What?" I finally managed. I glanced back at Kankuro. He had just finished reading it and was staring at the parchment with a mixture of anger and confusion on his face.

"We're being…relocated? Why?" He asked me. What was I supposed to say? This was ludicrous! For absolutely no reason the new Kazekage simply decided to up and move me and only one of my brothers to…reference check for sanity's sake…Konoha? Ok, so, as nice and leafy and non-sandy as Konoha is, it's not home. And why did we have to leave Gaara? There was something fishy going on here. Something didn't fit. I snapped the scroll shut angrily and looked up at my younger brother.

"Because, Kankuro..." I started. "Concerning Father's successor, they made a very poor selection."


	2. Confusion

Shifting Winds

Chapter Two: Confusion

"We have to tell Gaara," Kankuro told me. He didn't have to. I knew that. Something was going down here and we were going to need our little brother to be our muscle. How sad is that? We were on our way to go get our baby brother to protect us. I felt behind my back for the familiar feel of my fan and my fingers closed around its hard edges. I made a promise to myself then and there to train harder so that I could be the big sister for once. "Temari?" Kankuro poked me. I shook my head.

"Yes…well…it doesn't look like he's home," I responded, glancing around our new apartment. It wasn't so bad, I had my own room and the boys shared the other one. Gaara never slept anyway so we didn't even need three beds. I slid out my fan and propped it against the wall, arching my back. Then I remembered something. "…Even though he should be...Where did he go?" Kankuro merely shrugged Karasu off his shoulder next to my fan. That wasn't much of a response. Sigh. Not that Kankuro should know; I just wish I had some straight answers for once.

"Looking for your brother, I see? I thought I told you not to concern him with your relocation." Damnit, how did I miss that?! I spun around, instinctively grabbing at my fan and spreading it in front of me. Kankuro likewise pulled Karasu into a, though slightly aggressive, defensive stance. Looks like he didn't notice scar-tattoo man come in either. I guess he wasn't just some random assistant. Great. This wasn't scoring many points on my personal intelligence meter; I should have expected this.

I glared at the intruder. I suddenly felt very unwelcome in my own home. And by home I meant my country, not this shabby little shack I shared with my brothers. I used to be treated with respect. But it was very Machiavellian; Respect out of fear, not love. And now that Father was gone…wait, that didn't make sense. Gaara was still here. He's the one everyone feared, not Father. So what in the world was going on here? Gaara may have changed a lot but he's no weakling and still far from emotionally stable. Messing with the only people who cared for him might make him a little angry. Just a little. I consider myself fairly intelligent, but nothing was adding up in my head.

Scar-tattoo man smirked at me. "Get out, my little prince and princess. You're no longer royalty here." Who _was_ this guy??

Kankuro growled and his chakra strings twitched at the edge of his fingers. I put my arm out in front of him. Kankuro bit his lip and stood down. This was not the time to lose our calm. Though my surface calculations told me that we had an 87.99 chance of defeating the intruder, my instincts told me that it was better not to fight. Those were just surface calculations. I didn't know if he had any crazy hidden abilities or reinforcements waiting in the wings. And I wanted answers before I beat the crap out of him with a blunt object. My closed fan is pretty blunt.

I continued the staring contest and took a deep breath. I needed to stay calm. Why does my confidence desert me when I need it most? "We are not planning on disobeying the order of the Kazekage," I began. "We just want to know what's going on."

"Well, it looks like you _were_ going to disobey Kazekage-sama, missy. Thus you are not entitled to any information. And you will get none." Before I could resort to plan B, whatever plan B happened to be, six more jounin decided to drop by. "Here are your escorts to Konoha…oh…you may be wondering why we're keeping you alive. Well that I can't tell you either. But don't go getting yourselves killed. Haha, and don't even try to tell the Hokage about this. Or return here. We'll notice you." He nodded at us. "Pack up what you can carry as your belongings and get out of here."

I looked around at all the ninja surrounding us. They weren't as strong as their leader, but Kankuro and I couldn't take all of them. Snowflake's chance in hell. There wasn't anything we could do but give up for now; atleast we were leaving with our lives. But we would be back. We'd be back for our brother.

Where was Gaara?


	3. Friend?

Chapter 3: Friend?

I looked around the streets of Konoha. Our escorts had left us with a warning not to try anything. Please. Of course we were going to try something. This wasn't my home, and would never be. Kankuro and I weren't about to abandon our brother with no explanation provided. But right now…right now I had no idea what to do. We had no friends here, with the exception of those we had fought during the chuunin exam. And I highly doubted that they considered us as friends. Plus, there had to be a reason that they sent us here. Scar-tattoo ninja man said that they needed us alive but out of the way. Why? What was going on?

"We should find someplace to live, first." Kankuro offered. Yeah. That sounded like a good first step, since we were going to be here for a while. I doubted that we could just march right back home tomorrow. Luckily, even though we were exiled, they didn't take our money. We still had plenty of that. It was time to look for a little shack to share with my brother. And here I was just getting used to the other one.

Kankuro and I started walking through the village, looking for the residential areas. We got quite a few funny looks. I chuckled at Kankuro, "Honestly, you sure do draw a lot of attention with your makeup, not to mention Karasu."

"You don't blend in so well yourself, you know." I expected that answer, but it wasn't from Kankuro. I turned around and found myself face to face with the girl I had slaughtered in the chuunin exam. Eep. What was her name? Tennen? Tenten? Yeah, that was it. I grimaced. I wasn't exactly nice to her, and I really didn't need her fighting with me now. I wasn't here to make enemies. I needed friends.

Kankuro laughed and looked like he was going to say something snide, so I cut him off with a hand wave. "We're not looking for trouble." I ventured to the girl, hoping she wasn't going to start chucking shuriken at me in the middle of the street. People you beat always want rematches.

She eyed me suspiciously and said, "What are you doing here?" I bit my lip. Should I answer that? I hardly knew her. A few months ago I would have scoffed at her with an aloof 'None of your business' and walked away with my nose in the air. Man, I'm really full of myself sometimes. It was all overconfidence. Something that crumbled once I was faced with something bigger than I was. Like Gaara.

I sighed. I was going to take a spoonful of humility and tell her. Continuing that metaphor, it was going to be hard to swallow. I took a deep breath. "We've been exiled from our country and we don't know why. Something's wrong with the new power in charge and we're not supposed to find out. Naturally we have to. We need help. That's why we're here."

Both Kankuro and Tenten just stared at me in shock. Why did I just tell her that? I should have taken that information to someone more important. Someone higher up. No…wait. I had a revelation. The upper ranks were being watched. They weren't safe. But the genin…no one was watching them. Maybe what I just did wasn't so stupid after all.

"Oookay…" Tenten said slowly. She wasn't expecting my answer, obviously. "So you're saying that there's a new Kazekage and that he kicked _only_ you two out and you have no idea why?" Yeah, wow, it sounded really stupid now that I thought about it. We were going to have a hard time convincing people to help us. Tenten laughed. I looked at her in surprise. "Haha, that story is so convoluted it has to be true. If you were making it up, I'd have to seriously question your intelligence." She grinned challengingly at me. I smiled slyly back at her. Yeah, she wanted to fight me again. But not right now. Now, surprisingly…I guess she was going to help.


	4. Deliberation

Hi everyone! First off, thanks for your reviews! Second, I'd like to apologize for my writing style. I don't usually write like this; I took a more stream-of-conscious type approach to it. I'm sorry if it's hard to read or seems harsh and choppy, I'll try to smooth it out in upcoming chapters.

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Chapter Four: Deliberation

"Are you sure you're ok here?" Tenten asked as she looked around the tiny little apartment that Kankuro and I had just rented. There were just two rooms: a bedroom/living room and a bathroom.

"Yeah, we're fine." I answered. "We don't need a lot of space or comfort, just a place to sleep and a base of operations." I tossed my bag of belongings into the corner.

"So what do you plan on doing?" Tenten said as she leaned against the wall. It still amazed me how willing she was to help us. I know that, had I been in her position, I would not be helping me.

I shrugged; I honestly didn't know. I guess I had sort of hoped that the next step would just be explicitly laid out for me, like in RPGs.

Kankuro carefully laid his puppets against the back wall as he replied, "Well, I suppose the first thing we should do is gather as much information as possible; see if anything has been leaked over into Konoha. I have a feeling that Konoha's connected to this somehow, and that's why we're here."

"But if something's going to happen here, wouldn't you have been sent somewhere else?" Tenten's question was a more than valid one that I had been asking myself. I began to piece together an answer.

"I don't know how, but," I began. "I think that they're going to use us to get to Gaara. He doesn't want to be their secret weapon anymore, and that doesn't make them happy." I paused for a second to put together what I was going to say next. "So they got us out of the picture to get to him...but that's not enough. Something bigger is happening. I think we're operating under false treaties and our village is still trying to get at Konoha in order to re-establish itself. There will likely be another throw-down here while Konoha's defenses are still recovering."

"…Whoo." Tenten whistled. "That's a lot to take in…you should really talk to the Hokage about this."

"No, we can't." I said bluntly.

"You don't think…that the new Hokage…?" Tenten said in what she must have thought was dawning realization.

I shook my head to dispel her fears. "It's not the new Hokage. I don't think she knows at all, but I don't think we'll be able to tell her. Sand shinobi won't be able to fully infiltrate Konoha, but there will be a few monitoring the top and the exits to make sure we stay out of trouble."

"Well what if I tell her?" Was this girl really offering to risk herself for a couple of exiled ninja? I looked at her. Her eyes were dark and earnest with a fire behind them I hadn't seen before. I guess she was.

Kankuro scoffed at her. "You think she'll believe you? Why are you so keen on helping us, anyway?" He voiced what I had been thinking

I think Tenten was waiting for that. She nodded slightly while brushing a stray hair or two out of her eyes before beginning. "Lee told me about how your brother saved him, and I've also heard about how you two helped the others on the mission as well. I don't know what it is about you guys…first you beat us up, then you come to help? I was mad at you at first, but…it _was _a fighting tournament, after all. You didn't have to show up when we needed help, but you did. I don't have to help you now, but I will."


	5. Fever Dream

Chapter Five: Fever Dream

_Temari.._

Who..?

_You should stay here.._

Stay? I…I can't, I have to go home.

_Is that really your home? Just because you were born there?_

I have to go back. They need…he…needs me..

_You should stay here._

"I can't!" I sat up sharply, clutching at the thin sheet draped over my legs. I was panting heavily and my forehead was damp with fear. Kankuro rolled over some distance from me and sleepily asked if I was ok. I nodded dumbly to him and soon heard him resume his snoring.

I covered my eyes and slowly forced myself to calm down. Why was I so freaked out? From what I could remember about my dream, it wasn't all that scary. Just some voice…and I was running. Running away from something. Or was I running towards it?

I lay back down and with a sigh told myself to go back to sleep. Tomorrow…or rather, later today was going to be a long day. Tenten had told us that a lot of the genin she knew were in the hospital and unable to help us. That left…

-

"So that leaves.."

"Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura and Nara Shikamaru. Well, Shikamaru's a chuunin now but I'm pretty sure he'd be safe."

I laughed. "Shikamaru, huh? Sure his poor little broken finger won't be slowing him down too much?"

I grew serious as I considered the other names listed. I knew them all practically by heart, as I had to study everyone in the chuunin exam prior to taking it. I sometimes forgot their exact names, since there were a lot of contestants, but I knew who she was talking about and I wasn't happy. None of the girls impressed me much. Watching their fights shamed the entire population of female ninja. Aburame Shino was tough though creepy. Unfortunately, I knew he and Kankuro had issues with each other. That being said I suppose you could say Shikamaru and I have issues with each other, and I guess we do. Still, it was looking like Shikamaru was the only reliable candidate here.

-

I rolled over and sighed. Shikamaru impressed me more than Uchiha Sasuke did, no matter how powerful that kid was supposed to be. Even though I technically did beat Shikamaru in our fight, I still considered it a personal loss. He said that he gave up because he'd eventually lose anyway, and had his stamina run out, he would have. But he caught me when I had the upper hand; I let my guard down. I was used to being the smartest genin, hell, I was smarter than most of the Sand _chuunin_. This kid was younger than me and surpassed my intelligence. I wasn't jealous. I had respect for him. He really was a great ninja, though lazy as hell. I smiled to myself as I thought about how Kankuro teased me on the way home from Konoha.

_"If you would have just stopped flirting with that lazy shadow boy, Temari, we could have been home by now."_

I giggled. Wait, did I just giggle? Yes, yes I did. Bad Temari. I felt my cheeks grow hot. Don't giggle. I wasn't one of those boy-obsessed girly-girls who never amount to be good fighters because they spend all their time gawking at the resident heartthrobs. No, I spend my time training. Still…what if I did have a little crush on Shikamaru? It's not like anything could ever happen between us. After all this finished, I was going home. I thought about the dream. I _was_ going home. I don't care if it wasn't the best place to live nor was it filled with the most pleasant of memories, it was still home. But how was I going to "finish" all of "this," anyway?

Getting the help of one genin and one chuunin wasn't going to be that great when it came to fighting my home village and its corrupt new Kazekage. But if it was all we could muster, than so be it. "I won't give up," I whispered to myself as I drifted off into darkness, cradling my fan like some kind of child's teddy bear. "I won't give up on you, Gaara…"


	6. Morning

Chapter Six: Morning

"I'm only going to tell you this one more time: Get up."

"Five more minutes, mommy," Kankuro asked childishly as he rolled over and pulled his sheet over his head.

I sighed. We haven't had a "mommy" since we were infants, and neither of us really remember her. Kankuro liked to tease me when my mother hen instincts kicked in by calling me some variation of mother. Gaara never called me such, but then again I didn't expect him to. I'm pretty sure it sort of annoyed him when Kankuro did it.

"Lazy bum, are you just going to sleep all day and let whatever's happening back home go down unhindered?" I kicked him roughly in his backside, and he sat up and batted me away.

"I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled. "A few more minutes won't matter; nothing's going to happen this soon, anyway."

"Oh, you think so?" I asked mockingly. "We know absolutely nothing about what's going on, but you think it's safe to assume exactly when we need to worry about it?"

Kankuro looked solemnly up at me. "Temari, calm down." Calm down? My breath caught in my throat for a moment as I realized how flustered I had become. I blew my bangs out of my eyes in an outward expression of exasperation.

"Temari, I understand how you feel; I'm in this with you. But we can't go getting mad at each other when each other's all we have."

I knelt down by my brother, wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him. Kankuro and I don't hug. But he hugged me back and I held onto him like I would never let go. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm just scared."

"Me too," he whispered back. "But we can do this, ok?" He pushed me back and held me at arm's length. "Ok?" I nodded.

"Then stop this mushy stuff and turn back into the tough-as-rocks sister I know and love, alright?" I smiled, punching him playfully in the arm. "Ow," he grinned at me.

I stood up, re-adjusting my fan in my sash. Glancing back, I checked the little wind-up clock I had set down by the pile of sheets and blankets that was my bed. "You do need to get up, though, Tenten will be here soon. Oh, and," I laughed, "You might want to fix your makeup." Kankuro stuck his tongue out at me, which only made me laugh harder. I had a strange relationship with my brothers, but I was glad that I had them.

In about a half hour there was a knock at the door. I had straightened up the apartment to make it almost livable, and I nodded to myself as I scanned the room. Yep, it would do.

I opened the door and instantly fell into my mocking mannerism as I saw who was standing there with Tenten. "Feh, was this lazy fool all you could scrounge up, hon?"

I don't think Tenten understood, because she looked confused. "But you said…" she stammered, looking back and forth between the two of us. She relaxed once she saw we were both grinning…well…smirking at each other.

"Didn't think I'd see you again this soon, scary lady."

"It's too early for such compliments Shikamaru," I said, motioning for the two of them to enter the apartment.

"Shino is on a mission, it turns out," Tenten began. "I went to go see Lee in the hospital, as he's the most healthy of everyone in there, but due to the stress of fighting on top of his surgery he won't be released for a while. So, all I could get was Shikamaru." Tenten fluttered her hands in exasperation, saying, "Ah! Not that you're bad or anything, Shikamaru-kun, I only meant…"

Shikamaru raised his hand to cut her off. "Understood." He turned his attention towards me. "I was quite surprised to be roused out of my nice bed this morning by a girl I hardly know. However, I figured it would be less troublesome to come see what she wanted than try and get her to go away, as she was quite persistant."

Tenten blushed a little in embarrassment. "I only explained it a little to him, Temari; I figured he'd believe it more coming from you." I nodded to her and proceeded to explain the whole kit n' caboodle to Shikamaru.

-

"This is troublesome," Shikamaru sighed. "What do you expect me to do, anyway?"

Again, I had hoped that someone else would magically present the answer to me. I didn't want to have the answers; I wanted to get the answers from someone else. I felt like I was cheating on a test.

"I don't know, _you're_ the genius, think of something," I challenged, putting my hands on my hips.

Shikamaru sighed, cupping his fingertips together in a familiar position.  
"Women are so troublesome…"


	7. Bunny Ears

Sorry for the long wait! I've had a couple really busy weeks piled high with design and computer work, so I didn't have much free time! I made this chapter a longer one to make up for it!

P.S. Yes this chapter starts in the right place, don't think you're missing something.

-

Chapter 7: Bunny Ears

"Here, let me help you with your hair."

"I don't need help! I can do my hair just fine, thank you. And what makes you the local hair expert?"

Tenten looked at me with a bemused look on her face. She then reached up behind her head, and with a sharp flick of her wrists she unleashed the formerly invisible captive beasts perched on the top of her skull. I gaped at her.

"Your hair is THAT long?" I asked incredulously. I had figured Tenten's hair to be about my length, if not shorter. However, her long raven tresses spilled far past her shoulders, and past her knees for that matter. "Why don't you cut it?"

Tenten gathered her copious locks in her hands and deftly looped them several times at the nape of her neck, forming a surprisingly neat-looking bun. "Family tradition; I can't cut it. But it gets in the way if I don't pin it up and out of the way," she twirled her fingers around the top of her head, indicating where she normally had her buns. "So anyway, miss quad-tails, let's do something nice for your date."

"FIRST of all," I fumed, poking her nose with my forefinger. "It's NOT a date. And second, I LIKE my pigtails. Mother styled my hair this way when I was born, and I've been doing it like that ever since."

"I understand," Tenten said calmy, her eyes softening. "They're an homage to your mother?"

"Sortof…I guess…though I never really thought of it that way…"

"Still," Tenten began, reaching up for my hair. "You'd look so nice with it down for once."

"It's NOT a date!" I insisted again, batting at her hands. She laughed at me. Geez, we were being such stereotypical teenage girls. But you know what? I've grown up such a fighter that I've never really had a chance to argue over something so petty it didn't require whipping out my fan. Was this what normal teenage girls did? Played with their hair and talked about boys? Well…it wasn't the life for me, but I'll admit…it wasn't bad.

"Fine, fine," Tenten backed down. "I'll let you keep your crazy hair, but at least let me comb it out and re-do it so you can 'think better' during your 'strategy meeting,'" she mocked.

"Don't use the 'bunny ears' on me, 'young lady.'" I mocked back, mimicking her finger movements. She grinned at me before reaching back and pulling out her locks up and over her head into two towers of hair.

"You mean these?" I slapped my forehead at her attempt to make rabbit ears out of her hair, but it wasn't long before we both started laughing so hard we couldn't stop. Did I really just meet her a month ago? Well, I mean, I met her back in the chuunin exam but it wasn't until I came to Konoha in need that we became friends.

Shikamaru had decided that we were going to have to gather information, and he then set up some sort of spy network to retrieve info from anyone going to and from home. Kankuro and I weren't allowed to participate, as it would be too obvious and risky. Every few days Shikamaru and I would have a secret meeting of sorts, where he reported to me everything he had found out and we tried to strategize from there. Tenten began teasing me about them being 'dates,' but they weren't. No, I'm pretty sure that even if I wanted a relationship, Shikamaru would be uninterested. I mean, providing I even liked him. Which I didn't. Oh wait, I already admitted I had a little crush on him, didn't I?

"There," Tenten dusted off her hands and wiped her face in mock exhaustion. "That was tough, but at last I have completed my masterpiece!" I was learning to love that grin. It was nice having a female friend for once in my life.

"Very funny," I said as I checked out my hair in Tenten's bedroom mirror. "Wow," I couldn't help let out in surprise. "It really does look good."

"See, in addition to being a weapons expert, I am also a master of hairstyling no jutsu." Tenten performed some fake hand seals with the comb. "Hyah!"

"Oh come off it."

"Speaking of that…" Tenten twirled her own hair idly in her fingertips. Idly wasn't really the way to put it, every movement she made with her hands was so precise, as if she was playing some delicate stringed instrument. "I was thinking…for our re-match…" Oh no, here it comes again. The re-match always inevitably came up in our conversations. It's not that I was afraid of her or didn't think she was a good fighter; I just liked her too much. Plus, I had the clear advantage in weapons and would most likely deliver another humiliating defeat to my new friend. That was something I didn't want to do.

"Well…I was thinking we should do it without weapons."

Wait. What?

Did I hear correctly?

"Um…Tenten, both of us only fight with weapons."

"I know! That's what will make it challenging! I have no chance against your fan until I can learn a new jutsu to help counter wind. I mean, we both learned how to fight without them too, right?" Tenten was getting a little fidgety - probably because I was quite opposed to the idea. It was stupid. I trained specifically with my fan. But then again…it might be fun.

"Ok," I grinned. "You're on. But right now, I have a 'date,'" I sneered, wiggling my 'bunny ears' fingers erratically at her.

-

"Knock knock," I called out softly as I entered a secluded part of Konoha's vast forests. Several fallen and decaying trees created a very convenient meeting spot for Shikamaru and I. I glanced around cautiously before ducking into the little cavern of trees.

Shikamaru looked up at me as I slid in across from him. "Nice hair," he said. "Now, I have some interesting news for you..."

…He noticed?


End file.
